


Coffee and Comics

by MadisonAvenue21



Category: Impractical Jokers
Genre: Asking on A Date, Awkward, Dating, Friendship, M/M, Other, Sad Ending, bisexual brian, kinda angsty, kinda sad, non sexual relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 01:11:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13513623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadisonAvenue21/pseuds/MadisonAvenue21
Summary: Q had his shot and he blew it, but at least he didn't lose.





	Coffee and Comics

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I got prompt on here asking if I could write Q having to get a man’s number and a date instead of a woman’s number and what not. Thank you, Pete for the prompt and you’re amazing for being so patient! I hope after this extremely long wait that this was satisfying for you. I always try to write some sort of happy ending no matter what and I wanted to try something different for this. Also, I know this is long, I apparently don't have the ability to write short one-shots... it's a curse  
> xox
> 
> **Just know, that I don’t know what the fuck goes on in Brian’s head (god forbid), everything I wrote- including his feelings – are just made up for the purpose of this story…Let’s just all pretend for this purpose that’s he’s bi so I don’t have to come up with a bullshit explanation for all of this :)**

This had to be one of the most challenging day’s on set the four had in quite a while. From the moment filming had begun on that rainy Tuesday afternoon, everything seemed to be spiraling downwards. The coffee shop they were filming at was small, and the back room where everyone was crammed into was even smaller. It was hot, stuffy, and nearly everyone was uncomfortable but there was no getting around it; everyone had to tough it out for the sake of getting the shots. Q had drawn the extra short straw today as he was last to film, meaning he would be crammed in the back room for a consistently longer amount of time than any of the other guys. Normally, that wouldn’t bother him; but today, his nerves were shot. Sal hadn’t stopped complaining from the moment they arrived, mostly about having to be so close to Murray the entire time but also about how hot it was; to be honest the heat was bothering everyone (even him) but Sal went on about it for twice as long; leave it to Sal to complain about the obvious. He eventually got tired of hearing Sal and put himself in between Sal and Murr as to keep his complaining at bay. All day long his head ached from the slight hangover from the night before and the heat from the back room, today he was confident in saying he was actually looing forward to getting out on the floor to take his turn.

***

“Alright buddy, you’re up.” Joe patted Q on the back as he finished getting his mic hooked up and handed him his earpiece.

“Thank God.” Q muttered under his breath and navigated the maze of crew members to get to the door. Once he was out on the floor, he took a seat at an empty table. He wasn’t out there two minutes before comments from the other three began as soon as he was in sight of the camera.

“Hey Q, I’d tone the excitement down a little.” Q rolled his eyes at Murr’s comment.

“Yeah, yeah.” He whispered.

“Wouldn’t want to make a great first impression, huh?” Joe added.

“Can we just start? I wanna do it and be done.” He rubbed his temples and sighed loudly.

“Just one more question,” Joe chimed in. “Did you sleep in that shirt?” All three of them chuckle and watched as Q examined his shirt.

“It looks fine.” He said under his breath; he knows people are thinking he’s talking to himself right now.

“It looks like it’s been in the bottom of your hamper for two weeks.” Sal reasoned but Q didn’t care.

“This isn’t project runway, who gives a shit what I’m wearing? Now, will the three of ya’s shut the hell up and tell me what I’m supposed to be doin’?” All three guys looked at each other and raised their eyebrows and instantly knew that Q wasn’t playing around, he was in a legitimately bad mood. They noticed that the later it got, the worse he was getting.

“Alright, let’s do something quick and painless.” Joe looked back and forth between Sal and Murr with a smile, already having an idea for Q. “Super easy, bud. All you have to do is ask someone out.”

“And they have to agree to go out on the date with you.” Murr added.

“Bonus points if you get their phone number.” Joe then added.

“Alright, alright. One thing at a time.” Q immediately started looking around for someone to put his task in motion. His options were looking pretty slim, such is the price you pay when you go last; the later in the day, the harder your chances of success. Not to say it was impossible, because it wasn’t. He just had to play his cards correctly is all, which most of the time ends up being harder than it sounds. Glancing around the nearly empty coffee shop, he examined his whopping three options; there were two teenage girls sitting at a table across the room, a middle aged couple that was clearly in happy marriage and an single adult male at the table adjacent to his. He exhaled deeply in frustration, his choice clearly already made for him.

“This is a stupid fucking task.” He wrung his hands together, almost causing the circulation to be cut off, his heart started to beat harder.

“Well, here’s your options; you man up and ask the dude to your left out, you risk going to jail by asking one of the girls at the other table out, you risk getting punched in the gut by the husband at the other table, or you do the walk of shame to the back room and you lose by default.”

“It’s not like you’re actually asking this guy out for real. You’re not actually gonna go on a date with this guy, it’ll take two seconds.” Sal jumped in, trying to reason.

“I don’t want to lead anyone on or anything, that’s not right.” Joe quickly took the mic back from Sal.

“I think the heat is gettin’ to you, did you hear what you just said? Do you remember what we do for a living? Our entire line of work is leading people to believe we’re assholes who do stupid shit.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“Come on, bud. The faster you do it, the faster we’ll get outta here.” Murr added.

“Fuck me.” Q rolled his eyes and turned towards his left to better look at the man next to him. He couldn’t have been any older than 35; thick, dark hair, he noticed that he was dressed nicely but comfortably. The rounded glasses suited his face, they softened his features; Q thought it made him more approachable. He was a good looking man, it made Q nervous. He suddenly felt self-conscious about what he was wearing.  He took a deep breath, but before he could speak, the man looked to his right and gave Q a puzzling look.

“Do you need something?” his tone wasn’t harsh, more so just confused.

“Oh, um, sorry. I just wanted to know if the drink you had was any good. I’m not really a coffee drinker so, I’m trying to broaden my horizons and I’m not really sure where to start.”

“Well, if you’re not a coffee drinker you probably don’t wanna start with this. I usually get coffee with some sort of espresso shot, which is one of the strongest coffee flavors.” Truthfully, Q wasn’t even paying attention. The only thing going through his head was how he was going to ask this guy out without making it weird. Here he was, rocking the ‘I live in my mom’s basement’ look while acting like an ass for television and there he was, dressed in a nice blue button-down shirt and dark slacks with a tie to match, probably doing something important with his life; This thought didn’t make it any easier.  “I would say experiment with black coffee first to see how much milk and sugar you like, then you’ll have a better idea of what you can handle.”

“Do you also wanna ask him how to bake a cake? Let’s go Q, we don’t have all day.” Joe said.

“Yeah bud, quit stalling…” Murr added.

“Alright, Alright.” Q said quietly under his breath. He took a deep breath, watching the man type at his laptop and sip his coffee. “I can’t do it…” he whispered

“Okay, then you lose… and if we’re counting right, that means you’re the loser for this episode.” Q turned in the direction of the skillfully hidden camera with wide eyes.

 “Oh hell no.” his shoulders dropped. “You’re kidding?”

“Dead serious, do it or you lose.” He exhaled sharply and swiftly turned back towards the stranger. He banged his fist on the table gently, trying to think of what to say next. As he sat back in his chair, the stranger rolled up his sleeves; to Q’s delight, he noticed the man had a familiar looking tattoo on his wrist.

“Is that a superman tattoo?” he asked on a limb. The man turned towards him and smiled.

“Oh yeah…” he held his wrist out slightly, so Q could see it clearer. “Drunken college graduation mistake. I’ve grown to love it.” Q pulled up the sleeve of his t-shirt, revealing the superman symbol tattoo he had on his bicep.

“Drunken bachelor party.” He smiled back.

“Wow, yours is so much nicer than mine.”

“I got a lot of shit for mine, of course my friends waited until _after_ I got it to actually tell me how stupid they thought it was…”

“Oh yeah, me too. My one friend even told me I was “branding my nerdiness for all to see” but I was drunk, I didn’t care.”

“Do you like comics?”

“I’m not hardcore, but I do enjoy reading them every now and again. My job keeps me pretty busy. I did, however, read them religiously when I was a kid.”

“I did too. I know what you mean, about a job keeping you busy. I don’t get to read them much anymore myself. I try to keep up, but it’s hard.” They sit in silence for a moment as the man takes a sip of his coffee. “But this is pretty cool; I don’t meet too many people that have comic-like tattoos.”

“I guess it was me trying to hold on to a piece of my childhood or something like that. I sound like a cornball right now…” He shook his head and laughed.

“Trust me, I get it… more than you know.” Q smiled back and once again a voice rung through his ears telling him to get on with it. He rubbed his hands together before taking another deep breath, and going for it.

“So, I know this may sounds presumptuous, but maybe sometime soon we can take a trip to a comic book store and I can show you some of the best of the latest issues?” the man looked over at Q and then down at his laptop before shrugging.

“What the hell, why not?” he pulled out a scrap piece of paper from his computer bag and wrote his number down before handing it to Q. “I’m Mark.”

“Mark, I’m Brian.” Q smiled widely, holding the piece of paper up towards the direction of the camera but the moment was quickly ruined by Murr.

“Just because you got his number, doesn’t mean you got a date with him. You gotta confirm that it’s a date for the win.” Q pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration and turned back towards Mark.

“Wow, I didn’t actually realize how late it was; I have to get going.”

“It was nice talking to you…Brian?” he says with hesitation about the name but Q nods in confirmation.

“Oh my god, is he really not going to get the date after he did all that?” All three friends were watching the screen intently.

“I’ll call you, about the comic book store.” He held up the piece of paper before getting up and standing by his table.

“It’s a date.” Mark smiles and sips his coffee.

“It’s a date?” Q says with more excitement than he realized.

“I’m sorry, did I misunderstand?”

“What? no! I’m so happy you said that, it’s a date!” He ran towards the camera and pointed back towards Mark while not breaking eye contact; Mark just laughed nervously, unsure of what was happening.  

“Son of a bitch, always gets it at the buzzer.” Joe rolled his eyes and puts the mic down on the table.

“He didn’t get off that easy; he might have won, but now he has to go break it to that guy that he’s not really going to go…”

“Alright hot-shot, now go over and tell him it was all for a tv-show and that you’re not gonna go.” Joe said in a matter-of-fact tone. Q instantly stopped what was doing and looked over his shoulder to Mark and then back to the camera. He made his way to the back room where the guys were set up to continue their conversation, he didn’t want to look any crazier than he already felt.

“What’re you doing?” Joe asked when Q hastily shut the door and shuffled through the crowd of crew members. All four guys huddled around in a circle by the monitors, doing their best to exclude the crew from the conversation.

“You know what, we can tell him he’s on tv but, I’m still gonna call him, and we’re still gonna go to the comic book store.”

“Why?” Murr asked confused.

“Because he’s a nice person, he’s into comics, and he’s not bad looking.” Q shrugged.

“This is gonna end badly, I can already tell…” Sal said sitting in one of the folding chairs by the desk.

“Why? You guys have no faith in me?”

“What happened to never going out with anyone you meet during filming?” Murr asked

“This is different…”

“Why, because it’s not a teenage girl…”

“Well, for one, Joe… Yes. He’s kind of nerdy smart, I think we’d have a lot to talk about?”

“Yeah, like debating the sound that wolverine’s knives make…” the other three chuckled and Q rolled his eyes.

“They’re claws, dope… Why does everything have to be a joke, I’m trying to be serious.”

“That’s a hard concept for you, huh?” Q rolled his eyes and just so happened to look over on the monitor to see one of the crew talking to Mark about signing the release.

“Shit, who let them go out there already?”

“They had to make sure he signed it before he left, you know the drill.” Joe explained. Q shook his head before maneuvering past crew members to get to the door. He walked directly over to Mark who was packing up his things to leave.

“So, television…” He said before finishing off the last of his coffee.

“It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“But it is what it looks like.”

“This is why I didn’t want to do it.” Q ran his fingers through his hair as a nervous habit.

“Then why did you?”

“I didn’t want to lose.” He whispered, and Mark nodded, pursing his lips together.

“I guess you can tear up my number then.”

“I wasn’t planning to, actually.” He stuffed his hands into the pocket of his jacket, he felt like his heart was going to fall out of his chest.

“It was all for the joke? Why wouldn’t you.”

“It was never supposed to make you feel like that, the guys only suggested that because they were sure I wasn’t going to and you know what? I almost didn’t…”  
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have…” Mark stood up and put his bag over his shoulder before taking his leave from the shop.

“Holy shit.” Sal put his hand over his mouth in shock, his shoulders raised in tension.

“Yikes, bud… I’m sorry.” Joe said sincerely into the mic.

“I should have said something before I walked away. He thinks I played him… he was a nice guy.”

“We can have one of the interns run after him?”

“Nah, don’t harass him…” A sadness could be heard in his voice. He took his ear piece out, and headed towards the back room once more.

“Did we fuck that up for him?” Murr asked

“No? No… I mean, maybe Mark’s just a bitch?” All three chuckled but it ended quickly as none of them really thought it was funny.

“I feel really bad.” Sal chimed in. They buttoned up when they saw Q walking over towards the table.

“Hey, bud. Wanna get a drink after we finish here?” Sal offered.

“Nah, I still think I got a hangover going from yesterday.” He took a sip from the water bottle on the table. “Are we done, or do we need to do something else?”

“No, man. I think we’re all good.”

“Do you mind if I head out?” He looked between the three friends and all of them shook their heads.

“We’ll see you tomorrow, bud.” Murr called as Q grabbed his things and practically bolted for the exit.

“Now, I feel even worse.” Sal rubbed his temples and exhaled audibly. “I knew this was a bad idea.”

“He’ll be okay, let’s just agree to never bring it up again.” Joe sat down next to Sal and Murr followed suit.

**

Q had never left the set so fast in all of their time filming; he felt like a jerk. He never wanted to hurt Mark’s feelings, that wasn’t the point of the show. He was the one that was supposed to be the butt of the joke, not the other way around. He should have just taken the loss, then none of this would have happened. On his way out, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and immediately felt the paper that started it all. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at it before crumpling it up and throwing it away in the trash can by the door, he had no use for it now.


End file.
